Besides cutting carbs, it's important to increase your fat intake, and be moderate with protein. The fat you eat will keep you feeling energized and support ketone production. Protein is also important but if you go overboard with it, your body could enter into a process called gluconeogenesis. In gluconeogenesis, your body makes glucose from protein, and you want to avoid that.
Second, take a look back at table 2. Kegenix Prime scored as the “winning brand” for 4 out of the 7 markers tested: mental performance, satiety, mental clarity and energy. Compared to the other supplements, it also scored highest for physical performance, although none of the supplements were listed as a “winner” since the placebo outperformed them all for that marker.
We will go deep in the science behind this fascinating diet and then review some of the best exogenous ketone supplements out there in the market. Because without the knowledge and the right information about exogenous ketones that you can properly follow, you might never reach your goals and you may as well keep eating that mashed potato for dinner and club sandwich for lunch.

Increased calcium levels in the bloodstream may contribute to the hardening of arteries (atherosclerosis), which in turn can lead to a heart attack. Calcium from supplements enters the bloodstream in one bolus, whereas we usually tend to get calcium from foods in small doses from the breakdown process. This might explain why calcium from food doesn’t create the same risk that is introduced by calcium supplements. At first glance, it seems to be the case that high calcium intake –at least from supplements–may not be ideal.

Caveat emptor: the following post doesn’t come close to answering most of these questions. I only document my experience with BHB salts (and a non-commercial version at that), but say little to nothing about my experience with BHB esters or AcAc esters. But it will provide you will some context and understanding about what exogenous ketones are, and what they might do for athletic performance. We’ll likely podcast about the questions and topics above and cover other aspects of exogenous ketones in more detail.

Supplemental BHB’s are ideal for people new to the ketogenic way of eating. The changes that happen in your brain and body when adapting to a VLC diet are both immediate and profound. For example, our kidney’s start processing minerals salts much more efficiently. Ironically, after years of being advised to decrease our intake of salt (sodium), it turns out that for people transitioning away from the Standard American Diet (SAD diet) towards a lower carb or ketogenic diet there is actually a need to increase dietary mineral salts such as potassium, sodium, magnesium and calcium. During the process of becoming keto-adapted, it is very important to increase your intake of these essential minerals, in order to prevent the onset of unpleasant symptoms (known as “keto flu”).

When our cells undergo the process of autophagy, non-essential parts like damaged proteins are recycled and invading microorganisms and toxic compounds are removed. This means that autophagy plays an important role in stopping the aging process, reversing disease, and preventing cancer, but it doesn’t happen all the time. Fasting, protein restriction, and carbohydrate restriction are the three main ways that can initiate different autophagic processes — all of which are not the same. This is part of the reason why a ketogenic diet has so many positive effects, and it also shows you why intermittent fasting is a way to improve your diet even more.

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I began by simply playing all of the games over and over again (each game many dozens of times over the period of a week) to remove any “learning effect.” I then selected two games from each category (for a total of 10 games) and for a period of five days prior to “ketone-day” played each game five times each day. My “before ketones” baseline scores put me in the top 4% of all Lumosity users, so I was already in a good place. But could I improve even more, just one hour after consuming the ketones?

Sure Leslie, the goal is to induce the burning of stored fat in your body. This process usually take a few days of strictly limiting carbohydrate intake. Supplementing with exogenous ketones is a way to shortcut the wait time, essentially “tricking” your body into ketosis. I imagine supplementing with too many could have negative effects on fat loss, but the research is not out supporting that claim yet.
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We will go deep in the science behind this fascinating diet and then review some of the best exogenous ketone supplements out there in the market. Because without the knowledge and the right information about exogenous ketones that you can properly follow, you might never reach your goals and you may as well keep eating that mashed potato for dinner and club sandwich for lunch.
However, it's important to NEVER overlook the power of exercise and of course sticking to a proper routine to get the most optimized results. The most common mistake people make is by treating any keto supplement like a "wonder drug" that will help them shed weight in their sleep. Seriously... how is that even scientifically possible. So if you are thinking about trying out a particular keto supplement, I would suggest two things:
For the ketone esters, on the other hand, repeated doses of 20-30 grams in any one day may be possible. Thus these products may be able to maintain a modest level of ketonemia without dietary carbohydrate restriction. Thus some of the cardiac and brain fueling benefits may follow, not to mention the epigenetic effects limiting oxidative stress and inflammation. But given the recent observation that administered ketone esters markedly reduce circulating free fatty acids (Myette-Cote 2018) — possibly due to an insulin-tropic effect or direct suppression of lipolysis (Taggart 2005) — their sustained use in people with underlying insulin resistance may compromise their long-term benefits by promoting weight gain unless combined with carbohydrate restriction.
EK use can be compared to the nootropics that have been developed for optimizing focus, memory creation, and faster cognitive performance. While you may not notice this effect on a minute to minute basis if you keep a journal of “forgetful moments” you’ll find that you have fewer of them as time goes on. You’ll also find that you’re able to come up with better ideas, and your workflow is more efficient through the day (10, 11).

So I’ve been primarily on a Keto diet for almost 6 months. During this time, I have fine tuned a lot to get my ketone levels up (Eating more fat and less protein). Most recently, I have used blood measurements for my ketone levels and I fluctuate between .6 and 2.6. The higher readings I get on the days I workout in the morning (about 5 hours before I draw blood and take a reading). I don’t have any problems sticking to the diet. It only seems to get easier. I’ve also incorporated 16 hour fasts which also are becoming easier over time. My priority and motivation for doing a keto diet is first and foremost weight loss. So far I have lost 40 pounds and I need to lose about 20 more. I do however want to improve my performance (running) and strength (I am doing the Stronglifts 5×5 program now).

As for MCT oil (and oil powders), powder formulations tend to cause less digestive distress (e.g. probiotics), but some folks object to the additional ingredients like sunflower lecithin or soluble corn fiber). Even if you’d like to eventually settle on an oil, I’d recommend starting with a powder to see how you respond and to give your body the chance to adapt over time.

Exogenous ketones have a wide range of benefits that can enhance your fat-burning lifestyle. I personally use them daily as a strategy to heighten my mental performance and give my workouts an extra boost. For these purposes, I have also found it logical to combine exogenous ketones with other known health and performance boosting agents such as branched-chain amino acids and medicinal mushrooms.

Proper sleep is important for hormone function and repair of the body. Not getting enough sleep is tough on the adrenals and blood sugar regulation. Try to get at least seven hours of sleep per night. If you struggle with quality sleep, create an environment that is conducive for rest. This could be keeping your room cooler, turning off all electronic devices one to two hours before bedtime or using a sleep mask.

Ketone Bodies are then used by tissues as a source of energy3 through a pathway that leads to formation from β-hydroxybutyrate of two molecules of acetyl CoA, which are used finally in the Krebs cycle. It is interesting to note that the KBs are able to produce more energy compared with glucose because of the metabolic effects of ketosis—the high chemical potential of 3-β-hydroxybutyrate leads to an increase in the ΔG0 of ATP hydrolysis.3

The year before last I somehow full on Rocked at the keto diet lost 100lb, and was taking adderall. I am transitioning back into it again also back on the adderall, but i seem to have no energy and last time my doc did my blood work i was only 16% hydrated. Obviously it’s a huge problem for me, staying hydrated and trying to lift the fogginess. I am type 2 diabetic and my doctor is on board with me trying all to keep my sugars down YEAH!!! I have never tried any exogenous product. My body seems to not absorb much vitamins. Can anyone make a or any suggestion to me as to how to get this under control?

Satiety decreased in both cases, slightly less with the supplements than with the placebo: participants reported feeling less hungry after taking the supplements than after taking the placebo. However, we are doubtful whether this would be enough of a difference to impact food intake and therefore induce weight loss indirectly, compared to not taking a supplement at all. Especially since, as noted before, BHB switches off lipolysis.

We designed a test for each of the chosen benefit claims and enlisted the help of four of our Diet Doctor teammates to try out the supplements and go through the testing. They were Jonatan and Giorgos from the video team, Emőke from the recipe team and Erik from the IT team. We had a mix of people who were naturally in endogenous ketosis during testing, and people who were not.

MCT oil has recently been used to induce nutritional ketosis although it produces dose-dependent gastrointestinal (GI) side effects in humans that limit the potential for its use to significantly elevate ketones (>0.5 mM). Despite these limitations, Azzam and colleagues published a case report in which a 43-year-old-man had a significant decrease in seizure frequency after supplementing his diet with 4 tablespoons of MCT oil twice daily [96]. An attempt to increase his dosage to 5 tablespoons twice daily was halted by severe GI intolerance. Henderson et al. observed that 20 % of patients reported GI side effects with a 20 g dose of ketogenic agent AC-1202 in a double blind trial in mild to moderate Alzheimer’s patients [24]. We visually observed similar gastrointestinal side effects (loose stools) in the rats treated with MCT oil in our study. Rats were closely monitored to avoid dehydration, and gastric motility returned to normal between 12–24 h. Interestingly, the BMS + MCT supplement elevated βHB similarly to MCT oil alone, without causing the adverse gastrointestinal effects seen in MCT-supplemented rats. However, this could be due to the fact in a 10 g/kg dose of BMS + MCT, only 5 g/kg is MCT alone, which is less than the 10 g/kg dose that elicits the GI side effects. This suggests that this novel combination may provide a more useful therapeutic option than MCT oil alone, which is limited in its ability to elevate ketones in humans.
Lots of good info but some things are just plain wrong. It takes 2 days max to get into ketosis if you stop eating carbs. Your body can only store roughly 2 days worth of glycogen. When those stores are exhausted your body will immediately turn to fat. It may take a week or several weeks to get “keto adapted” but it simply won’t ever take you more than 2 days to get into a state of ketosis.
Proper sleep is important for hormone function and repair of the body. Not getting enough sleep is tough on the adrenals and blood sugar regulation. Try to get at least seven hours of sleep per night. If you struggle with quality sleep, create an environment that is conducive for rest. This could be keeping your room cooler, turning off all electronic devices one to two hours before bedtime or using a sleep mask.
Beta hydroxybutyrate floats around in your blood, and importantly, can cross different barriers to be able to be turned into energy at all times. One of the most important areas where this happens is in the brain. The blood-brain barrier (BBB) is usually a very tightly regulated interface that doesn’t allow the transfer of many molecules, but since BHB is such a rock star and so hydrophilic, your brain knows to let it in so it can bring energy to the party at any time. This is one of the main reasons why increased levels of ketosis lead to improved mental clarity, focus and reduction in neurodegenerative diseases.
In a nutshell… WOW! The chart above shows each of the games/categories I played, showing my prior 5-day averages compared to the day I took the ketone esters. Compared to my baselines, my scores increased across the board, with the biggest improvements in spatial orientation (+32.2%), working memory (+23.7%), quantitative reasoning (21.5%), task switching (+14.9%), and information processing (+14.9%). Below are more detailed comparisons:
The benefits of intermittent fasting translate to untrained overweight and obese individuals as well. One study published in Obesity Reviews found that eating fewer calories is effective for fat loss, but it does come with some muscle loss. However, if the subjects fasted for 24 hours and ate as much as they wanted on the next day for a period of 12 weeks, they lost significantly less muscle mass.
Lastly, EK products in general ​are usually in the form of salts, which is why they are referred to as BHB Salts. The BHB ketones are bound to common salts such as sodium​, calcium, magnesium and potassium​ to improve absorption rate. These salts are also the core electrolytes your body needs to help you avoid feeling mentally drained and physically lousy during the keto-flu transition period.
Another effect of the ketone drinks was to lower blood glucose, free fatty acids, and triglyceride levels. This sounds great. Elevated levels of all those markers are harbingers of disease, particularly if they remain chronically elevated. But think about what this means. If free fatty acids go down, that means adipose tissue isn’t being liberated for burning.
I eat one meal a day during a one-hour window and fast 23 or more hours every day. I want to use your ketones to get back into ketosis faster after that meal. Will that work? I am confused, because say at the end of my hour eating window I drink your ketones, sure there are lots of ketones suddenly in my body but I also have a big meal in my stomach. My body has to digest and use that food energy, so how do exogenous ketones help me in that case?
And zero-carb, followed by fasting for two meals, and then followed up by a second zero-carb meal is almost always all you need to get into ketosis fast. By Sunday or Monday morning, after a second night of no carbs, you'll be in a deep enough ketosis that hunger will crash and your energy will surge to help you transition into your low-carb diet of choice.
If you noticed that you're not getting into ketosis quick enough, chances are you're not eating enough fat. Eating plenty of healthy fat is essential in inducing ketosis. One reason why this is so is that your body makes ketones from fat. The other reason being that fat is highly satiating, so your body won't slow down or start breaking down muscle for fuel.
I’m getting an increasing number of questions about exogenous ketones. Are they good? Do they work for performance? Is there a dose-response curve? If I’m fasting, can I consume them without “breaking” the fast? Am I in ketosis if my liver isn’t producing ketones, but my BOHB is 1.5 mmol/L after ingesting ketones? Can they “ramp-up” ketogenesis? Are they a “smart drug?” What happens if someone has high levels of both glucose and ketones? Are some products better than others? Salts vs esters? BHB vs AcAc? Can taking exogenous ketones reduce endogenous production on a ketogenic diet? What’s the difference between racemic mixtures, D-form, and L-form? What’s your experience with MCTs and C8?

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Medical Disclaimer: The material on this site is provided for informational purposes only and is not medical advice. Always consult your physician before beginning any diet or exercise program.